Horrific Attack by Train Staff on Young Girl For Wearing Hijab!

Bismillah


Horrific Attack by Train Staff on Young Girl - For wearing Hijab!
Monday, 12 June 2006

Whilst most of us go about our regular train commutes without fears of abuse and harassment, one sister has been left traumatised by her experience during one of her regular commutes. Usually we see the railway staff, that work to ensure our journeys are pleasant, as a symbol of safety and security. Yet for Nisa Khan this connotation has been sharply destroyed by the abuse that she suffered at the hands of those very railway staff. She was taunted and harassed by an emplyee of Central Trains; why, you ask? Because she is a Muslim…another classic example of a few individuals abusing their authoritative positions to carry out their Islamophobic witchhunt against an innocent, young sister.

Whilst most railway staff do work to protect and serve us we must ensure that those that don’t, be brought to justice and removed from positions of such authority and importance. If you fail to take action to defend this sister, don’t cry to others if the same happens to you tomorrow

Central Trains are investigating claims that workers trapped a Muslim girl in a carriage and subjected her to racist abuse at Leicester railway station.

Nisa Khan, 21, from Leicester was waiting on a train for Birmingham when the driver told her to get off as the destination was Sheffield.

But she said he then locked the doors leaving her trapped inside.

She was later released by the British Transport Police. Central Trains said the matter would be fully investigated.

A spokesperson said: "We are taking this incident very seriously.

"Once the investigation has taken place, we will be speaking to the woman concerned."

Ms Khan, a student at University of Central England, Birmingham, said the driver was joined by two other colleagues who taunted her and prevented her from leaving the carriage. (This horrific incident happened whilst n innocent sister merely attempting to take her regular journey back to university. There was no provocation and yet the train drivers felt that they had the right to act in such an appallingly disgraceful manner. In what world is it ok for the drivers to have acted in such a manner?)

She called police on her mobile phone who arrived after around 20 minutes and freed her from the train.

Ms Khan said: "What normally is a one-hour journey ended up being the worst day of my life.” I got into in Birmingham at 11pm because I was too scared to take another train, I had to get dropped off and I keep suffering panic attacks."

She was travelling on the 18.14 service from Leicester to Birmingham to go back to university on 4 June.

What Can You Do?

For further information on this story and this sisters personal account visit the forum. In the sisters account she strongly believes her head scarf, was the reason why she was subjected to racist bullying, taunting and harassment at the hands of the Central Trains drivers and is determined to seek justice. Furthermore, she has been left traumatized and in fear of travelling by train in case she encounters the same workers and is put through the same horrifying ordeal.

This sister has been left ‘traumatised’ by these events and yet we never imagine that it can happen to us. But what if next time it is us that is sitting on the train, or your mother or your sister that gets taunted with such abuse? Most people would sit at the front to the train to be nearest to the driver for safety reasons, that safety seems to have been destroyed by the acts of a few malicious individuals. It seems ironic that those we look to protect us are the ones who have now set out to hurt us. Whilst we can assume that most train drivers are not of this calibre, these few individuals have tarnished the others.

It is time now that we brought these cold-hearted individuals to justice. We cannot allow this behaviour to go unquestioned, giving others a free pass to follow their lead. It is our duty to push for answers to what happened and to push for the removal of these individuals from our public services.

MPACUK urge you to take 5 minutes to defend not only this sister who was subjected to a brutal example of Islamophobia, but ALL sisters who have been subject to this kind of abuse or who may be subject to it in the future. If we do not defend our sisters there will be no one else who will and those who commit such acts of abuse and vulgarity will be left to continue to destroy the lives of innocent sisters.

Make Your Voice Heard

Please get in contact with:

- Trade Union Congress (TUC) [email protected] and
- Leicester Railway Station so we can ensure that answers are given.
- CENTRAL TRAINS on 0121 634 2040. [email protected] (please direct your complaints to Mark Hollis, Customer Relations Manager for Central Trains)

When emailing the complaint, remember to put your full name, address and telephone number please, otherwise the complaint will not be filed.

Do not sit back, but instead recognise this atrocity for what it is and please get involved before this happens to you or someone you know

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